Greenhouse Effect
by Reichenbach
Summary: The Doctor manages a phone call across universes and shortly thereafter finds himself on a paradise space station run by plants. Nothing is ever as it seems. 10Roseish 6th in the Doors series
1. Chapter 1

Standard disclaimers, yadda yadda. Thankya to Erica for finding all of my lost words. I'm just a font of productivity. Better eke out as much as I can before the well dries up, y'know. So, yeah, peer pressure. Me.

XYZ

Greenhouse Effect

Chapter 1

XYZ

The electrical current from the exposed cabling on the underside of the TARDIS control column jolted right up the Doctor's arm and he had to bite his lips together to not yelp. "Bad ship," he grumbled, still lying on his back. "No banana."

Twisting the wires and yet another rigging job, he finished it off with some good old-fashioned electrical tape, got everything started with the sonic screwdriver and exhaustedly got up to examine his handiwork.

Looking at the cables running from the top of the column down to the open access panel (that now wouldn't close, thanks to the excessive cabling), he realized it looked like hell. But he also had to keep the time rotor from sticking by beating it with a rubber mallet half the time, so garishness was in the eye of the beholder.

Whether this was functional ugliness like the rubber mallet or not remained to be seen.

Taking a break, he got up and stretched his neck, then wiped his hands off, leaning back on one of the metal railings to look everything over. He'd been working on this for weeks, planning it for even longer. The last three tests had gone horribly, ranging from broken hoses and fuses to electrocution but he was determined to make it work this time. He really did need to make up for how badly things had gone today. And yesterday. And the day before.

Three lovely days meant to be spent in mid-twentieth century up-state New York ended up being three lovely days spent in seventeenth century England. Replete with being accused of witchcraft. So, y'know. They had a full weekend.

Violet was still a little irritated with him—it wasn't so much that she'd been convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to burn (after being nearly drowned, of course—which had actually been the whole problem to begin with. She needed to have NOT held her breath for ten minutes, thereby convincing them that yes, yes she was in fact, a witch), but that they'd actually set the pyre on fire before he'd managed to rescue her. She hadn't spoken to him the entire night after they'd gotten back to the TARDIS.

Which was why he needed this little project to work so badly. He watched the numbers tick down on one of the monitors as the ship prepared to drop out of the vortex. No time like the present to test a theory.

It wasn't like he hadn't had his own problems, of course. But he'd been smart enough to just confess to the witchcraft early on, whereas Violet had somehow thought she could beat the local government at its own game. That kind of determination was adorable when she was staying up all night making complex space-time algorithms work. It was less adorable when the price of failure was getting set on fire.

But, ultimately, the miscalculation was his fault and by extension so was the part where she'd nearly been barbequed for her tenth birthday. The Double Digit birthday was not to be taken lightly, and because of this, it was exceptionally rude to almost get her killed when all they'd meant to do was go to a rock concert.

He was all about training the kid in the classics. Pergolesi, Puccini, Pink Floyd…Well, that and she'd lost her taste for pre-twentieth century music after Mozart smashed her hair around her head and called her a strange little child with questionable tastes. That tended to ruin the arts for a kid.

You'd think he'd have been more grateful, the Doctor mused. They HAD saved the bloke from having his head removed and his brain embalmed by over zealous antique harvester droids.

The TARDIS dropped into space fairly quietly and with a minimal of jostling, for which he was grateful. He had probably about even odds that it hadn't caused her to wake. If it did, she'd be in the control room in a flash, ready to dash out the door before she even knew where they were.

She didn't stir, however. He waited a full five minutes before flipping on the alternating power, then bouncing the appropriate signals through the void, past the crack in the universe, into another universe, off fourteen satellites, and…

When he heard it ringing, the Doctor grinned manically, giddily holding the ugly early 1990's model receiver to his ear. He almost jumped out of his skin with anticipation by the fourth ring, and by the fifth he was crushed with defeat.

Defeat turned to elation when someone actually picked up on the other end. "Hello?" he called out, while the other person was still fumbling with the receiver.

"Who the hell is this? Do you know what the hell time it is?"

The Doctor didn't, but he could guess. Jackie Tyler was even more pleasant after having her 'beauty' sleep broken. "I-is Rose there?" Oi. He sounded like a sixteen year old calling a girl for the first time.

"It's three in the morning, of COURSE Rose is here! Who the hell is this? Is it someone from the office? My husband's going to have your head…"

He could just hang up. It worked. It had really, truly and actually worked, now that he had a power source big enough (unreliable at that, but now he knew how to do it). They had a two way conversation going between dimensions. Sometimes it hurt to be as clever as he was. No really, it physically hurt.

There was more fumbling. "Rose!" The Doctor pulled the phone away from his ear. "It's some idiot from your office! Apparently the world's ending and they couldn't reach you on your mobile."

He'd have to work up to the mobile. It bounced off a few more satellites than the connection could handle, currently. He thought the house number was clever enough for one day.

Another receiver in the house picked up, and there was more rustling. "Yahmm?"

His heart caught in his throat, and he couldn't speak. Just hearing that much of her voice again, after so long… It killed him to hear how much she sounded like Violet, when he was forced to wake her up from a sound sleep.

"Hello?" She groaned. "Don't tell me they hung up…" He could hear her getting ready to plunk the phone back on the base. 

"No, wait! Hi! It's me, I just…" He ran a hand through his hair, letting out a nervous breath. "Rose… I did it."

The silence caused a thousand thoughts to race through his head. What if she didn't recognize the sound of his voice? What if it was too distorted over the void, what if she was mad about being awakened…

All of that fell away when he heard her take a deep breath. It was as if he could hear her smiling. "Doctor?"

Sliding onto the floor, he rested his head against the control column in relief. "In the flesh, er…voice. Something. I'm sorry I woke you up. But I wanted to try this while Violet was still asleep. I didn't want her to be too disappointed if it didn't work."

XYZ

It was as if they'd never been out of touch. Sure, the frequent text messages had helped, especially since they'd been able to boost the bandwidth about a year ago to transmit short audio attachments and pictures. But real, live, synchronous communication… Far more than he'd have dreamed of ten years ago.

Rose laughed, telling of all the complaining her mother was doing out in the hall—the phone had been ringing for the last two weeks at all hours of the night and day, with all of his failed experiments. Maybe one, two rings…but a few times it'd rung longer, but when they'd picked it up, no one had been there, but the line itself would be locked up for hours. Pete had the whole house rewired over the weekend, which might have contributed to his success. The house had been old and those lines had probably been close to a hundred years in age and use. A bit of fiber optic wouldn't go amiss.

He told her about why Violet was angry with him now, and that, truth be told, she had every right to be. It was quite possibly the worst way to spend a birthday. He didn't celebrate them, personally, but he had discovered over the past few years just how important they were to little girls who could count all the years of their lives on two hands' worth of digits.

"You'd better have gotten her a cake," Rose warned. "I've gotten approximately thirty-two emails about the type of cake she wanted…all within the last week."

Elbows resting on his knees, the Doctor relaxed a little more and laughed. "Ballerinas. She hasn't been nearly-killed by any lately, so they're still in her good graces. I know, I know. I completely had that under control—for about twenty minutes. Had a rough landing… bits of cake ALL over the wall of the control room. THEN she almost drowned AND was set on fire. I think by the time we got back in the ship, she'd had quite enough of me, and my idea of birthdays. She stalked right off to her room, wet AND smoldering. She's marching out of the control room, and she walks over to the wall, scrapes a handful of topping off, licks her fingers and declares that AT LEAST I got the right kind."

Rose fell into a fit of laughing on the other end. "Oh Lord. Mum'll love that. Of course, I'm not sure which one of you she'll be laughing at."

"Jackie COULD cut me some slack, I AM dealing with a miniature version of herself."

Rose asked what the likelihood of that would be, and even he had to admit, it was slim to none.

They pattered on for hours about everything and nothing. The mess under Violet's bed, Pete's latest patent, the latest ugly wiring on the entirely out-of-hand TARDIS control column, Rose finally giving in and buying a car…a little blue Japanese rice burner that smelled odd in the winter…It was almost like having her there…but it was also a very present reminder of just how far apart they were.

'Someone' was either bored or hungry, because about four hours later, Violet came wandering into the control room still in her pink and purple flannels, looking worse for the wear. He was lying on the grill, feet propped up on the console like it was a Friday night and he was chatting with his best girl.

"You look… ridiculous," Violet informed him with a yawn. Her stuffed sheep was still clutched under her arm, and he wasn't entirely sure she knew that she'd dragged it along with her.

The Doctor grinned, sitting up. "And here is the birthday girl now. You're never going to guess who I have--"

And she never would, either. The ship rocked, tossing Violet against the wall. The phone snapped out of his hand, and he scrambled after it as the ship jostled again, as if it had been hit. When he put the receiver to his ear, the line was dead.

One more throttling later and he had scrambled to his feet, looking at the monitors. Someday, he'd like to just come up one for the better on these things.

XYZ

They'd just popped in and out of four places and times in a matter of thirty seconds, according to these readings. Nothing the TARDIS herself had done, however. Perhaps this was a byproduct of the energy he'd been funneling through the ship, trying to make the call? Maybe he'd let it go on too long. Who knew when he'd be able to try it again.

Sitting up, sheep still tucked under arm, Violet rubbed her eye and yawned. "What horrible place are we at now? Maybe we can a place that'll accuse me of heresy. Or better yet…collusion with the Ottomans. Maybe we're in a place where I can be possibly stretched on a rack! I know, why don't we go to Eastern Europe! Vlad the Impaler hasn't tried to run me through, yet!"

Ahh yes. Melodrama and righteous indignation. A lethal combination.

The Doctor shook his head, waving a hand at her while he tried to figure out their coordinates. A place would be easy enough, then he'd have to derive a time based on relative star position. It wasn't difficult, just too much cross-referencing. "Go put some clothes on, and I'll tell you where we're at. And if you're lucky, I won't hand you over to the local constabulary as a stow-away."

She frowned at him, as if trying to figure out whether he was telling the truth or not, but did as he asked.

It took a minute to work out, but here they were. The place was the Sarraras System. The year was somewhere around three thousand. And outside…

He walked around to another monitor, flipping the switch for the external display. The space colony was beautiful. It looked like a glass Christmas ornament the color of old Coke bottles. It had a rounded dome that met the base level of the city then made a delightfully sophisticated inward curve to a long point disguising the stabilizing thrusters. If a city could be a work of art, he'd certainly found it.

Double-checking a reading, he frowned. The Doctor had also just found the tiniest, faintest distress signal in a perpetual loop. No telling how long it had been broadcasting, or how the ship had picked it up.

A few minutes later, Violet was standing beside him, her hair buried under a bandanna and the bright pink sheep still tucked under her arm. He inspected her attire. "Aren't we just the little artist today."

Some burnt, frazzled strands stuck out of the teal and magenta rag. It was time for a hair cut. The jumper was black and so were the jeans, which only left pink socks sticking out of the rubber-soled Mary Janes she insisted on wearing everywhere.

Cheeks red and dry from the fire, she had the look of someone who did not want to be annoyed today. So did the grumpy pre-breakfast glare.

As long as she didn't come back to the TARDIS with half a dozen face piercings today, then he'd call it a win. If he could somehow rectify the birthday situation, that'd be the cherry on top.

He pointed to the monitor. "Amazing, isn't it? Made entirely out of living crystal. It's a self-sustaining greenhouse environment ideal for growing--"

Violet walked away from the monitor. "Let's just get this over with and get to the part where a plant tries to eat me."

Oh, she was NOT in a good mood today.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	2. Chapter 2

Standard disclaimers apply. Thanks to Krypto for giving it a once-over. Thanks to Kates Master for actually finding stuff that needed fixed and thanks to Erica for moral support. I'm just… so freakin' evil. And easily influenced by peer pressure. Just… gimme a while. I haveta work up to it ;)

Greenhouse Effect

Chapter 2

XYZ

They had landed within the city limits, the TARDIS actually (for once) officially parked in a docking bay. The population of the colony had many visitors, so the staff didn't even look twice as the box materialized in a stall.

Violet walked out and looked around the enormous earthen-toned bay, none of the usual wonder in her eyes. Various types of people frittered about, some humans, some miscellaneous aliens of all types, some the tall, lithe, many-colored people that were indigenous to the colony. The girl took it all in, but it was with a sort of wary, exhausted dismissal.

Perhaps the Doctor should just send her back to bed…especially if she was going to be a killjoy all day.

A male with dangling dreadlock-like willow branches for hair, white course skin and a clipboard approached. "And will we be paying by credit or trade, today?"

The Doctor looked to Violet, impressed. For her part, Violet was curious, but having trouble mustering up any caring. "Trade, definitely. As long as we're not talking about trading the ship."

The man's long, regal nose turned up at the Doctor and he laughed. "Oh no. No, no, no. I don't know how these rumors get started." He made some notes on the clipboard, on an advance synthetic paper. When he handed the document to the Doctor, several more lines for signatures and trade preferences appeared.

The Doctor looked over the list. "Oh. I have quite a bit of those. They all don't need to be entirely in working order, do they?"

The attendant craned his long neck to look at the clipboard again. "If they're modern era, we can refurbish. However, if they were manufactured before the second spice war, they'll have to be mint or restored before they'll be accepted for trade."

Making a few checkmarks on items he could stand to part with, he signed 'The Doctor' on the page and handed everything back to the willow man who looked at the signature and did not bat an eye.

"Very good," the attendant continued. "Recreation or business for your stay?" he handed the Doctor a booklet of accommodations and attractions.

Leafing through the pages, The Doctor bit his cheek and ignored Violet's eye roll. "Bit of both, I'd think. The tyke's had a rough few days; something a bit fun and relaxing would be in order for her. I think I'd like to take a look around before I decide where we'll spend the night."

Her foot connected with his calf. "You're trying to get rid of me."

Turning around, he gritted his teeth and gave her a wide-eyed stare, the universal signal for 'just listen to me for once.'

The man with the clipboard inspected Violet. "And what sort of fun and relaxation would the little miss be interested in?"

The Doctor wasn't giving her time to think, because she'd only be grumpy about it later. Better she be grumpy with him than with her own choice. He tugged the bandanna off the mess of hair. "I think a bit of hair care would be in order, a good hot meal, cup of tea, maybe something for the dry skin." He touched her red cheeks. And an attitude adjustment, the Doctor wanted to add. But then he'd just get kicked in the leg again, and that'd just be no fun at all.

The willow man's hair swung wide as he turned on his heels and the Doctor had to dodge. "Very good, I know just the place."

They followed the man out of the hanger. Everyone else appeared to be dealing with the staff and each other in a civilized manner… maybe this place was just the thing. Distress signal aside.

Violet also seemed to notice the calm, relaxed atmosphere of the place. It caused her to hug the sheep under her chin nervously.

The streets were dirt, covered in sod. It smelled earthy, but refreshing, with none of the usual tinges of decay, though the Doctor knew they were there. Large rainforest trees arched upward, limbs and roots intertwining to form complex structures in which homes and businesses appeared to have been established. The city was old, the Doctor realized. They'd solved all of the typical material problems of a new colony and had since branched out into trade and the arts. This race had done quite well for itself.

He noticed Violet gawking. She wasn't gawking in a way that bespoke being utterly charmed by the place, which the Doctor was, but being utterly suspicious. "There's something wrong with this," she whispered. "Everybody's too cheerful."

The Doctor shrugged. "Sometimes a colony run by peaceful plant people is just a colony run by peaceful plant people."

"I'd like you to tell me that, in those exact words, when we're being chased by blood-sucking aliens." A large red flower turned, as if it were inspecting Violet. She stopped dead in her tracks.

Their guide appeared to sense that all of his group was not with him and he turned, the viney branches swinging around again. "Zeeliastroff… they're finally in bloom. Lovely, aren't they?"

Suspiciously, Violet looked at him, and the smile spread across his terribly white face, then leaned in to the flower, sniffing the center.

Her nose was instantly irritated and she began puffing, a sneeze building up.

"Choo!" the plant's petals had drawn close together for a moment, then the thing had actually sneezed…depositing bits of white pollen all over Violet.

The Doctor laughed out loud as the girl turned to the side and finished her sneeze, looking up at him in annoyance. Oh no, he was not going to salvage her ruined birthday by laughing at her for getting sneezed on by a plant.

"Ahh. They do that, sometimes," the attendant announced, turning back around. "The shops also work on credit. Your signature is all we will need, and we'll tally the size of the trade when you check out. We can add the young one on to your bill, so that she can also sign..."

As they walked through the town, he explained that there were sixty-three eateries, most catering to the dietary habits of humans…and other humanoid life forms, he was quick to add. Not wanting to interrupt, the Doctor simply nodded, acknowledging how observant the fellow was. Forty-seven other shops which also accepted credit and several others which were run by foreigners. They were warned to check on payment method before making purchases in these establishments to be sure that the terms were…agreeable.

There had been a bit of a fog, but it lifted as the atmosphere became something akin to sunny, flooding the place with a pleasant amber glow. Arriving at a tall structure made from carefully shaped bamboo and sporting a lovely front garden with large, open flowers, Violet shook her head. "The first munchkin that pops out of there, and I'm outta here. Same thing if I go in there and meet a wizard behind a long curtain."

The attendant actually laughed. "Yes, she's had a time of it. But this'll be just the thing." Another plant-based life form, a lady this time, met them at the door and the clip board was handed off.

The lady looked everything over, flipping to a second page that hadn't been there a moment before. "Why yes, I think all of this is accomplishable on a day pass. And if not, you said you may spend the night?"

The Doctor nodded. He expected Violet to have something else to say, but she was just staring at the woman, entranced. Her skin was a dark green, blotched with pink pigmentation in soft flowing patterns, her hair a shoulder-length plait of tiny purple flowers accentuated with lightly pollinated yellow anther. Her lips were a solid pink and her eyelashes, also anther, looked like they'd been brushed with gold dust.

If Violet still believed in fairies and hoped to meet one some day, she was as close as she'd ever be.

Long green fingers folded in front of the lady and she smiled. "I am called Anil. You would be?"

Violet seemed to completely forget that she was tired and grumpy, and that the Doctor had ruined her life. A smile spread across her lips, like she was thrilled to death that Anil was acknowledging her existence.

Ha HAH! The Doctor almost called out. See, he wasn't that awful after all. Violet had met her fairy princess. Instead, he smiled brightly and shook the attendant's hand. "Thank you for your time, I guess I'm off to have a bit of a wander." He waved to Violet. "Behave, don't do anything I wouldn't do…no piercings…" he made his way off, still babbling about what she should and shouldn't do.

Wandering around the city limits, he saw nothing that was any different from the commercial street they'd initially been shown. There were houses, businesses, all integrated seamlessly with the plant life.

It didn't take him very long at all to figure out that he had to find something…off the beaten path, if he was to discover the source of the beacon. As he walked toward the outskirts of town, the number of structures dropped off steadily. So did the number of flowers and Technicolor plant life. It turned into lush greens climbing up hillsides, filling in the landscape. The paths weren't covered in sod, they were cut into the earth by hundreds of crossings, then covered over by thick grasses as time erased memory of them.

Whatever was calling to him was either forgotten, or very old. Possibly both.

The artificial sunlight faded away. It stayed humid but grew cooler, a misty fog settling around the area. Pulling off the covered path, he found a path leading up the hill. It didn't appear to have been a trial of any kind, just an easy foothold created by water runoff over years and years of neglect.

Climbing about half way up, the Doctor found a fairly level spot and sat down, being sure that he was firmly situated on his coat to protect against any moisture in the grass.

It was the oddest thing; these hills were toward the edge of the dome, though he probably still had a mile or more to go before it came to that. But the hills appeared to be just as tall, if not slightly taller than the structures within the town. Basic spatial perceptions should have dictated that since there was the perception of more "sky" in the center of the town, that those structures should be taller. All the large structures should roughly be the same distance from the edge of the dome.

He might be making too much of it. Trees peeked out through patches of fog for as far as his eyes could see, valleys filled with swirling mist, like a cauldron. It was quite serine and peaceful, despite how quiet it was.

There were no animal sounds. He'd heard nothing since entering the town, no signs of bugs pollinating flowers (of course, if you could sneeze and project your own pollen, making it airborne, what need did you have for bees?), no crickets, frogs, rodents…not even so much as a stray dog or bird had crossed his path throughout his entire long walk out here.

It was entirely possible that rational explanations existed. The natives were plant-based life forms, perhaps they came from a place devoid of animal life and so did not see the need for it now, or were more comfortable without animals trying to build nests in their hair or build damns with their body parts.

Still…it was an agreeable, calming atmosphere. If he lived or work here, he'd be tempted to keep it on an even keel and keep conflict to a minimum. Anything other than pleasantness would seem like a shout in a quiet church, in this place.

The Doctor decided he'd enjoyed the view long enough. Getting up, he brushed bits of grass from his coat and continued up the hillside, wondering…just for the sake of argument…what would happen if he let out a loud shout in this cathedral?

The hillside was steeper now with more moss-covered rocks. The top of the mound was a vibrant green, the moss practically glowed with life. Contemplating the rocky terrain (on a space colony station!), he took one more look down at the mists of this place. He had forgotten to ask what it was called.

Coming down the other side of the mountain, he saw old, dense woods at the base, stretching all the way to the dome. He slid on a steep bit of weathered granite. Obviously an imported hillside. Why? To give the appearance of a planet-scape?

Everything here was entirely natural—he'd seen no concrete, no metal outside of the docks. Of course, it wasn't forbidden…they hadn't taken his sonic screwdriver off of him, nor had they confiscated Violet's rayon and polyester sheep. They just appeared to live truly and completely at one with their (created) environment.

Sometimes friendly plant people were just friendly plant people.

Of course, if that was the case what was this weird cement bunker facade with painted metal doors doing under this jutting rock?

Oh, questions without answers.

He did enjoy them sometimes. Trying to bite back a grin, the Doctor busted out his favorite tool and made short work of the locked and chained double doors.

The chain dropped to the ground and the second lock gave way almost immediately. The doors were a bit rusted and stuck neatly together, but he'd climbed a rather sizeable hill for this, and a bit of rust and melted paint wasn't going to get the better of him.

A change in setting on the screwdriver and a few tugs later, and he was inside.

The ceiling, floor and walls of the bunker were smooth and grey, sloping downward as he proceeded. It was dry in here and smelled of arid concrete. The only light was from his sonic screwdriver. The tunnel turned abruptly, making a sharp right and proceeding still further down. No hand rails, no doors, lights… whatever was down here was meant to be never seen again. Chances were, it was long forgotten by the people of this city.

He probably walked half a mile before he came to an abrupt left that turned into a short hallway with a pull-down gate blocking off something he desperately wanted to see.

Finding the locks (rusted, mechanical beasties without a sign of technology in site), he disengaged them and then began searching for the release mechanism for the gate. He'd specifically made sure not to destroy the locks, just incase there was something trapped in here that really OUGHT to be. He'd hate to be eaten because he'd punched out a key lock in his zealousness to see the giant man-eating two-headed gorilla that had sent the distress call.

Of course, all of that worry was for naught, he realized, when he finally pulled the gate up and beheld the room inside.

Octagonal in shape, there was a cement catwalk surrounding a pit. A railing around it and a force field of blue green light held a patch of dirt with hundreds of barely sprung and grown plants in a stasis field. The computers along the walls, large, clunky mechanical units blipped away endlessly, performing the calculations they'd been set to however many hundreds of years before.

He walked to the handrail, inspecting the tiny specimens pecking up through the loose earth. Ugly mushrooms, poisonous if he knew his botany. Rag weed, crab grass, dandelions and a hundred other species of pests, all held frozen in time, as if it were some strange sacrifice to a god he had not yet met.

Looking over the computers, he tried to figure out what it meant, but there were no indication as to what any of the controls did, and there were no displays giving readings. He had a good mind to just turn it off, THEN find out what was happening, but he was trying to teach a certain someone to look BEFORE she leapt. Easier said than done; he admitted it—he was a consummate meddler, but apparently admitting you had a problem was the first step.

The plants weren't hurting anything. Perhaps this was how they kept the place so neat and tidy—lock the garden killers away. But why lock them away, why not kill them? Well, that would be like capital punishment to plant people, wouldn't it?

If killing plants was murder, what did these people eat? It wasn't like he'd seen a herd of cattle grazing anywhere on this quiet outpost.

Hands in his pant pockets, the Doctor looked down at the weed and mulled it over. He may have found out the colony's secret to better gardening, but still had no idea where the distress signal emanated from. "You wouldn't be calling out, would you, little guys? I mean, what're you in distress over. Well, besides not being allowed to grow." The Doctor let out a short laugh. "Well, you guys grow if you want to. How's that? I give my permission."

Completely at a dead end, the Doctor locked the gate behind him, returning to the surface.

A mile or so later, he opened the door. Closing it quietly behind him, he used the screwdriver to at least relock the door. He wasn't sure if he wanted to touch the heavy chain.

Turning, he almost jumped out of his skin.

Standing there was the willowy attendant; clipboard in hand and a rather serious frown upon his face. "Oh, sir. This is a problem. A very large problem indeed."

The Doctor let out an unsteady laugh. "Oh, nothing to see here, y'know. I was just wandering, and I said to myself, 'Self,' what is this cement structure doing in a totally organic hillside? And I said…I don't know. So I took a quick peek inside, and now I see that there's just a whole bunch of nothing, and I'm closing the door, as if this NEVER happened, and I'll just be on my way, ready to go check up on the tyke."

The other man shook his head, something remorseful in the way his branches shook. "A very, VERY large problem."

A branch from the top of the man's skull whipped out and slapped the Doctor on the side of his head before the blink of an eye. It took longer for the Doctor to hit the ground than for the initial assault to take place. "So sorry for the inconvenience," the attendant muttered, dragging the Doctor away. "So very, very sorry."

TBC…

9


	3. Chapter 3

Standard disclaimers apply.

XYZ

Greenhouse Effect

Chapter 3

XYZ

"What is this place?" Violet asked, looking around the front of the shop. There were counters lined with containers and devices, all created from living plants. Who knew what the containers actually held. The chairs were heavy vines that wove up out of the myrtle covered floor. There were mirrors on every wall, not made of glass, but the same slightly-green crystal as the dome. Thin, dangling spider vines dropped down over a doorway which lead to the back.

Anil smiled warmly, looking at the clipboard. "Why, my little Flower, this is my salon."

Unable to contain her curiosity, Violet rushed to the nearest counter, picking up a jar made of tiny woven shoots. It was so intricate that it actually unscrewed. Mindful of the tiny yellow blossoms on top, she unscrewed it, sniffing. "It smells like…cocoa butter."

Holding out a long hand, the beautician gestured for the girl to take a seat in the nearest chair. "It is. Mixed with a few other special ingredients, of course."

Violet handed her the jar, then sat down merrily. The vines adjusted beneath her. It was quite possibly the most comfortable chair she'd ever sat in. "Of course."

The woman began running her fingers over Violet's abused tresses, looking the girl in the eye through the mirror. "Yes, this will need special attention. I believe I have just the thing."

Pulling out a vial, she began working something with a very dark, musky smell into Violet's hair. The fragrance was heavy and relaxing and so were the thin, gentle fingers, which managed to pull through tangles that made hairbrushes cry. Violet leaned her head back just a bit, managing not to yawn, but losing the battle to keep her eyes opened.

Once her hair was saturated, Anil began working in some other dark-smelling substance, this time a cream. "Sandalwood oil and petiole butter. That will go far toward repairing the damage. Then we'll simply do away with the bad bits, perhaps give you something a tad more… sophisticated, and then we can work on the skin, hmm?"

"Huh." Not really that clever of a thing to say, but it was an adequate expression of how impressed she was. Maybe the Doctor was right. Maybe a peaceful colony of plant people was just that.

Running a wooden comb through the girl's hair, Anil asked Violet about her travels.

Violet knew enough to be vague, talking about some of the more common types of visits, and never the specifics about what went on there. "I liked that space station most of all, you could see from top to bottom, it was just a big coiling ramp. And in the middle, in all that space, were these metallic pillows. They were just as heavy as the air, so they just rose and fell with the air currents. It was so pretty."

Anil asked about the types of people that populated the place, the carpets, the food… the day-to-day happenings of other places seemed to fascinate her. They talked about that one space station all the way through Anil drying her hair with sonic hair dryer and combing it through (which seemed to go through awful easily, compared to the Doctor's nightly battles with her hair).

The conversation stopped very quickly when Violet realized her hair wasn't being clipped with scissors. Spinning around suddenly, she saw the tiny plant with a flame shooting out of the bud.

Anil let out a small chuckle at her surprised reaction. "It's perfectly safe. It seals the ends of the hairs for most hominids and prevents future split ends and frizzing. Now, if you'll face forward…"

Surprised, Violet turned back around and let her finish in silence.

Before Violet could see the end results, the vines relaxed and she reclined. Something very fresh and vegetative was slathered on her face. She kind of liked the cool feeling on her burnt skin.

As a second layer was brushed on, their conversation continued. "If you don't mind me asking, what manner of toy is that?" Anil asked, gesturing to the stuffed animal on the counter.

Violet looked at it. "It's a sheep. It's supposed to help you sleep at night." Whenever she couldn't sleep, her grandmother always told her to count sheep. They'd found that one at a late 21st century open-air junk market, and she'd picked it up for twenty quid, which, at the rate of inflation for the time, averaged out to about the cost of a package of gum back home. "You've never seen a sheep before?"

Anil put the pot containing the green salve on the counter. "I have heard of them. I did not know they were…so colorful."

The girl proceeded to explain that it wasn't a realistic representation, it was more of a…fun thing. They conversation moved on to various types of animals, none of which Anil had ever seen. "I've lived here all of my life," the lady explained. "We do not have such manner of creatures here. Though I should like to see one."

Violet suspected Anil would like to see a great many of things. It was probably why she was asking after them all the time. "Why don't you travel? See the universe, or visit your home world?"

Anil began tidying up her work area. "Our home world doesn't exist any more. Well, it does. But it's an uninhabitable rock. The weeds invaded long ago. My people saw that the end of their time on the planet approached, and they began searching for a new home. Those that left survived. Those that did not were conquered—overtaken in body and soul by the weeds. It is said that their magic is so powerful it takes but a single seed to kill a whole world." Looking around, she found a soft woven towel and dried her hands, brushing spare bits of hair from her cream colored robes. A thoughtful smile spread across those pink lips. "Listen to me going on. This is our world now, even if it is not a world. We need not go any further, our kind have created all that we desire. It is a paradise, and we are fortunate to have it."

Violet wondered about that. It might very well be all that she had seen, and all that the beautiful, exotic Anil said. But something was missing, at least for Anil. That much even a child could see. "You've never wanted to even visit some place else? Just to…I don't know. Remember why you stay here?"

They'd picked up a traveling companion last year who had only been with them for a few months. Enoch had been a fine fellow, a lanky, spectacled young man fresh from a nineteenth century law school. He liked crisp white shirts and was always wearing black suspenders. He'd been curious about what lay beyond the stars, and the Doctor had shown him. He'd certainly had the fortitude for the type of traveling they'd done, but in the end, being away from home had only served to remind him of why it was home.

Sometimes Violet missed Enoch. He was a dower man, but very good at crossword puzzles. Sometimes Violet simply missed having someone else to travel with. Sure, the Doctor was the Doctor, and was loads fun to travel and argue with. But at the end of the day, he was in charge, both of the ship, and of her. Sometimes, another person to talk to was just the thing.

Anil stared at herself in the mirror for several moments, thinking this over. "I do not know. My kind…we gladly accept visitors, but we are not…akin to 'visiting' ourselves. We have done very well for ourselves here. We have earned our rest and peace, and so we take it."

Violet mulled that over for a bit, a question dying on her lips. For a moment, she'd had every intention of asking Anil to go with them. The woman may only be interested in the day-to-day goings on in the universe, but she was still interested. It was not difficult to see the wanderlust, even if Anil did not know that she felt it herself.

XYZ

After the face treatment, and another round of oily hair products, Anil and Violet had tea in the back room. It was good; usually Violet made hers syrupy with sugar, but this seemed to have everything, the dark touch of tea, the light flavor of ginger, sweet herbs and a dash of citrus. The bread of their sandwiches was flat, Violet had asked Anil about yeast, but it was a foreign concept to her people. The sweet, fresh vegetables between the slices was quite good, and there was a tart milky dressing on top that turned out to be soy-based.

They didn't eat the products of animals here, not even anything imported from a place with livestock or game. Everything came directly from the earth, and returned directly to it. The girl found this insanely interesting. Especially since she could see, Anil hid nothing from her, or from those who stopped by the shop to pick up a knotty root treatment or just to say hello. Anil was as she was.

Violet, hair wrapped in a towel of some fabric she'd never encountered before, licked her fingers, pushing the wooden plate away from herself. "At first, I didn't like it here. Everybody was too… cheerful."

Graceful, thin arms reached past the girl as nimble green and pink hands cleared away their mess. A small chuckle escaped those plump, frosty-pink lips. Violet was still stunned by the woman's exotic beauty, but she was completely done-in by the woman's charm. "Outsiders often say that, on their first visit. But they grow used to our ways." She leaned in, conspiratorially. "And then they come back, and they bring their friends, and they spend a lot of credits or trade very valuable things. I don't think I ever remember a time when being friendly hasn't worked to our benefit, and certainly to our visitors' benefit. It's quite profitable to treat others as you wish them to treat you!"

In traveling with the Doctor for almost three years, Violet had seen many things. Cultures based on might and strength, cultures that had never known a time of war, cultures that maintained peace for millennia with fear… She'd never seen a place where the 'golden rule' was actually abided by, to everyone's benefit. "Where I come from, there's this thing," Violet began. "It's called 'human nature,' and grownups usually use it to explain away selfishness and the things people do to one another. Does that happen here?"

Anil's golden lashes fluttered, and Violet knew she had no idea what she was saying.

The girl tried to find another way to put it. "Usually when you go to a space station, or a colony, before you even leave the dock, you either see a list of things you can't do, or someone tells you. And if you don't follow the rules, they usually throw you in jail. I didn't see a list when we got here."

Refilling their cups, the woman sat in a vine chair next to Violet, thinking about this. "We have laws. No one breaks them. Well, outsiders do, occasionally. But they know if they do, they shan't be allowed back."

Getting kicked out of paradise certainly seemed pretty bad, but what about more serious crimes, Violet wondered. "Is the penalty the same for things like…murder?"

The word made a variety of things flash across Anil's face. Like she knew of it, in theory, but had never seen 'murder' itself or how a society dealt with such atrocity into practice. "It hasn't happened here since…well, before my time. I'm not sure I know of anyone who could tell you. Perhaps the trees would know." She gestured to the building around them. "This is why I cater especially to outsiders. You're all such thoughtful little creatures, and you bring all of your thoughts into here. It's delightful."

Ahh. Anil was an armchair explorer. She liked new people, places and ideas, and she liked exploring them from the comfort of her salon. "You know, I should like to find out about your past, if you have any records," Violet added. "Do you have a town hall?"

Looking around them, Anil pointed upward, indicating the trees again. "They are our record keepers. And they will tell you, if you ask nicely."

Violet had a nightmare vision of having apples hurled at her by angry trees, like in the Wizard of Oz. So far this place had been Munchkin free, and she'd like to just not find out about cranky wizards or irritated trees. "The trees are sentient? I mean, you're sentient. And I've seen some tree-type people, but what about the buildings? Is that how you get them as they are? Intelligence?"

"Sentience is usually a term meant to imply a measurable intelligence. I wouldn't call the trees clever, so much as wise. They are old spirits that see all that goes on, and remember it."

From the light coming in through the green-tinted crystal windows, Violet could see that by this city's reckoning of time, it was getting late in the day. The Doctor should have been back by now, even if she'd been a cranky little tyrant this morning. Which meant, he was probably off having fun without her, first of all, and second of all, this place really WASN'T as it appeared. She didn't know if she was excited or disappointed by that.

Finishing her second cup, Violet stood, wondering how far she could go with getting to the bottom of things on her own. "I think I'd very much like to talk to the trees."

XYZ

In the distance, there was the despondent ping of water falling a fair height then slapping against a puddle. It was wet and dark. There was a musty smell of decay that he hadn't smelt on this colony.

There was something else that hung on the humid air. Smoke, steam and smelted metal.

Slowly, discretely, the Doctor brought a hand up from the table upon which he lay to the side of his head, rubbing the tiny wound on his temple. That more than just a blow with a whip-like branch; it had some kind of poisonous barb attached, which had been torn away from his skin, probably why they'd no longer wanted him conscious. His dear attendant was not just a willow tree. He'd either been augmented, or had been born as some strange animal-plant hybrid.

"How was I to know?" a voice whispered harshly. "I thought he was already infected. He was going on and on. Hysteria is the first symptom of infection. I thought…" There was a sigh. "And every test and scan came back clean?"

The Doctor let his hand drop back to his side.

Another soul breathed deeply, the sigh of an old man. "Clean. Spirit of the Woods Incarnate… I thought we were undone. You should have watched him better."

"No one has ever ventured over the hills."

"Well, someone has," the old man sniped.

Ever so slowly the Doctor opened one eye. They were looking at an old, boxy super-computer, backs to him. He wasn't restrained in any sort of way, and he still had his sonic screwdriver on him. Either they were completely amateurs or they knew something he didn't about why he wouldn't just…bust his way out of here.

The old man also had long willowy hair, sans leaves, and it also whipped around as he turned back to the Doctor, who immediately went back to playing unconscious. "Take him back to the city. I'll arrange a nice suite. The girl?"

There was the sound of synthetic papers being leafed through, probably on a blue clipboard. "Still with Anil. She need not know anything of this."

"Good. Good. These are not the troubles of youth. She has not asked after him? Oh, the preciousness of youth." From what he could hear, the old man was shuffling toward him. "Get him settled in as quickly and quietly as possible. If he asks questions…tell him as little as possible. These are not troubles for a foreigner, either."

There wasn't much for the Doctor to do, well, other than wait for things to get a little weirder.

TBC…


	4. Chapter 4

Standard disclaimers. Thanks to krypto for the beta. He said it looked OK, so if it doesn't, send all hate mail to him.

XYZ

Greenhouse Effect

Chapter 4

XYZ

Late afternoon light made the treetops glow a golden orange. The shadows were heavy and dark, moving with the gentle breeze whipping through the dome. There was no telling where the light was coming from, it wasn't as if there was a sun hanging in the sky, but it was also strangely focused. This place really was a technological and natural wonder.

Violet had asked how the architecture had become so, and how the vines had been so expertly woven like spiral staircases up the trees. Anil had laughed at the girl then, picking up her own flowing skirts to tackle the incline more readily. "We simply ask them to," was her reply.

Great, psychic plants.

Violet wasn't fond of psychic anything, herself. The Doctor had forced her to learn how to keep her mind to herself, but to press at others, if the need arose, but it always made her ill. The Doctor insisted it was psychosomatic, like when she attempted to do highest maths in her head. She could, of course, but it always made her want to lose lunch.

As they walked up the twisting vines coiling around the enormous trees, Violet took it all in. The truth was, she was having trouble finding the trouble. The people who'd stopped in the salon had been sincerely friendly, Anil was accommodating to the point insanity (Anil had, after all, closed her shop early so that Violet could talk to the trees). The place was paradise.

So, then where had the Doctor dashed off to, and why wasn't he back yet? Really—she'd have mounted a search party by now, if she weren't slightly suspicious of the trees, and didn't have complete faith in the Doctor's ability to not die or something. Ok, maybe it wasn't complete faith. There had been that lovely three-week period about half a year ago where she'd thought he'd simply misplaced her on a hell planet. She'd made nice with the local subservient race and spent her time patiently waiting for him to remember that he'd misplaced her, but really he'd been captured by the demon-like beings that ran the place. Horrible misunderstanding. Took her months to live it down.

They found a crook in the branches only twenty or so yards from the treetops. The vines wrapped in circles, making a sort of nest, much bigger than any bird would need. This place seemed to be 'designed,' if that was the word, for contemplation or communing with the trees. Anil sat in the crook, gesturing for the girl to take her rest, and she did.

The leaves above them were in silhouette from the afternoon sun. It was humid but still warm, and Violet could have gone to sleep then and there, leaning against her new friend. "What do we do?" the girl asked, trying to keep herself awake and working on the problem at hand.

Anil's spine pressed against the heavy branch, one long leg trailing off of the pallet. She relaxed, seeming to become a flower blossom among the leaves. "Calm yourself. Allow the trees to hold your body. They will support your weight and more. Then allow them to support your mind. They will support the weight of your mind, and more."

Violet had been closing her eyes, trying to listen to Anil's instructions, until she'd gotten to the bit about the mind. She wasn't entirely comfortable with just giving her mind over to another being, willingly. Allowing someone to peek in your windows was one thing. Even opening a door and allowing them to step through wasn't entirely awful. That at least required effort on the other party's fault. But this…

Well, she was the one who'd started this.

"They do not talk to us all, always. But you may ask your questions, still."

Relaxing against her friend, Violet felt the coil beneath her. She felt the tree branch, swaying but steady, creaking beneath her as the leaves shimmered around them—above, below, behind, in front of. The leaves sang their own song, lulling, comforting…

Violet felt herself drifting off to sleep. She realized she wouldn't have to worry about the whole handing her mind over on a silver platter to a bunch of trees to poke, prod, play with and possibly commune with.

Oh well, she had never slept as much as her mum would have liked, but she still needed more sleep than the Doctor. The meager few hours she'd caught after their rousing expedition into seventeenth century England just hadn't been enough. Still…it would have been nice to know what in the world was going on here.

"He has not meant it, but he has freed the enemy. They lured him here, crying false tears. They drag on his coat-tails, hiding, waiting for complacency. Even now they slowly infect our priests. Even now, their spores rewrite our paradise, to turn it into a world dead."

Why?

This was a silly dream. The leaves were clouds, turned purple in the night sky. The stars are what spoke to her, the collective consciousness of the forest. That being said, she'd like to know why.

"They only bring death. Death to our children, the people we have guarded for so long. We have guided them to this place. If the seeds of destruction are sewn, our children shall not Become."

Violet wondered what the Doctor had gotten himself into. Become what? she wondered to herself.

"Like us," the stars told her.

Snapping awake, Violet had that whole 'falling out of a tree' sensation, which wasn't funny at all, considering she was in a tree.

Anil's arm was around her, however, and she wasn't going anywhere. "Little Flower, what is it?"

Looking around, Violet began searching for her footing, knowing she had to get down. "I have to find the Doctor. I think he's gone and done something very…not-good."

Which was not how it was supposed to work, of course. SHE was the one who did the completely un-brilliant ape-like thing and needed rescuing—it was just her role to play in the Universe. Like that whole trying to explain exactly how she was able to hold her breath for that long under water. That hadn't helped her cause.

Of course, the whole thing had started because she had…y'know…busted a poor unfortunate teenager, for whom she'd felt sorry, out of the pillory while the Doctor was talking to some boring bloke about his sheep (only the Doctor would care about late-summer wool production) in the town commons. They just had to go thinking that she'd exploded the locks with the black magic spraying out of her fingertips or something, and the whole trying to explain sonic technology hadn't gone well. Actually it had gotten her dunked in the lake. For ten minutes.

Nix the whole thing. She'd spot the Doctor this one 'possibly bringing about the destruction of an entire colony' thing. She'd been entirely responsible for almost getting herself turned into a birthday candle .

Winding their way back down, Anil asked if 'her little Flower' had spoken with the trees. Violet's name was no end of delight to the beautician. Earlier in the day, the woman had blushed with glee, explaining that it made Violet her sister, even though she was made of meat. This was both weird and flattering.

Violet thought back to her dream, trying to assess whether it was, in fact, a dream, or if she had really spoken to the trees. Sure, why not? It seemed about as reasonable as anything else that happened to her on a daily basis. "That's how I'm pretty sure it's a bad thing that the Doctor never came back 'round for me." She could see the ground, now, which caused her to quicken her pace, just a bit. "Oh, and apparently your people are evolving into rooted plants, instead of the other way around."

One hand on the tree and the other on her skirt, Anil continued after Violet, but a bit slower as she took in this new bit of information. "Interesting."

Not at all the response that the girl had been expecting.

After a few more minutes passed in silence, they reached the ground, where the attendant from the docking bay was waiting for them, clipboard in hand. "Miss, if you will come with me? Your…associate has chosen accommodations for the night."

XYZ

When the attendant opened the door for her, she entered the rooms, which were as lush and live and green as the rest of this place. The Doctor was standing with arms clasped behind his back at the large green-tinted window, looking out at the twilight. He thanked the attendant, who scurried away as quickly as possible, hair swinging in his wake. There had been something strange in his voice, curt but courteous, as if he knew that he had gotten all the information that he would out of the fellow.

Throwing herself onto the bed, Violet grinned up at his back. "I'm DYING to know what you did. Because you've REALLY done it, this time. Irritated the tree gods and everything."

The Doctor didn't turn to look at her, but continued staring out the window, deep in thought. "I'm not sure, really. And you're a fine one to talk, Little Miss Subvert-Local-Justice-Because-The-Boy-Is-Cute. I take it I'm forgiven for a failed birthday?"

Legs kicking up in the air, Violet rested her head in her hands. "Nope. That was all me. Never try to reason with the unreasonable, especially if they're wearing stiff white collars, aye?" Rule number ninety-seven or something. "Besides, this is FAR worse than setting a small child on fire, and it's ALL on you. We're talking…destruction of civilization as we know it. Conquered by the weeds, or something."

Spinning around, the Doctor started thinking out loud. The ideas came spitting out like machine gun fire. "Conquered by weeds. That's what I saw in that bunker. Weeds in some sort of stasis field. They were all young, perhaps too young to bloom and reproduce. The technology sustaining the field was impossibly old and the place appeared rather forgotten. But when I'm done down there, the attendant from the dock is there, cold cocks me with his hair, if you can believe it--" he made a face, craning his neck. "What happened to your head?"

She snapped to her feet, igniting the small red flower planted in the wall like a sconce, lighting the room with the chemical reaction between the petals. Running to the glass window, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. "WOW." In her haste to talk to the trees, she'd completely forgotten to look at Anil's handiwork. "And I feel lighter, too," she noted absently, looking at her well-thinned hair.

Usually it sat at her shoulders, stacking outward in it's frazzled insanity, a dark, indecisive blonde. Part of it was slightly past shoulder length, entirely tamed and mostly straight, except where it hugged her neck then flipped out casually. The rest was varying lengths, all slinking around her head then making a sharp curve away from her.

It was also a lighter shade of blonde, though Violet couldn't remember any dye. It wasn't drastic enough, just a few shades lighter so that she didn't look her hair was the color of dishwater any more. She liked to think of it as more of a committed blonde; instead of her hair being unsure as to whether it wished to be blonde or brown.

She and gran had often gotten their hair and nails done together, it was their favorite 'girl thing' to do. But she'd never found anyone who could actually subdue her wild hair for more than a few hours. Anil was her new favorite person in the universe. "We are SO coming back here," she announced, running a hand over her smooth hair. "Granted we don't destroy the place."

Standing behind her, the Doctor looked at her in the glass, hands jammed in his pockets. His forehead was wrinkled, the thought process worn entirely on his face. Violet didn't know if he was working on the problem at hand, or her.

She turned around for a second, looking him in the eye. It was such a weird look. Like he was seeing her for the first time, or seeing someone else again. The mental vibe was weird. Which reminded her of the trees. "Oh yeah, and I COMPLETELY talked to the trees without losing tea all over them," she announced proudly. And she hadn't even had to 'stop thinking like a human' to do it (which she refused to do—if human was good enough for her mum, it was good enough for her). She just had to fall asleep.

XYZ

He'd been working on the problem at hand, trying to figure out why it would be necessary to knock him unconscious in order to save him from some 'infection,' an answer he'd never gotten from the attendant, even after direct questioning.

Fortunately, it appeared that Violet had not only had an attitude adjustment with her salon time, but she'd also done some digging (he'd like to pat himself on the back for that one, if he could—some parts of her education were going extremely well). She'd started filling in some of the holes, and her talk about the destruction of this colony, the sentient trees, being conquered by weeds…

And he'd really felt like he was on the verge of putting the pieces together to at least know which honey pot to stick his hand in next, and then he'd actually bothered to look down at her.

First of all, that hairstyle was far too mature for a ten year old. It made her look fifteen, at least, which was an entirely separate issue from her legs kicking back and forth in the air in her boundless energy, the hair color, that button nose, big brown eyes teasing him for being a major contributing factor to their current predicament…

Basically, she looked far too much like someone he missed too dearly, someone whose laugh still rung in his ear from this morning. At other times, it might have been a comfort. Tonight it stung in some new way, as if in all these years he hadn't somehow managed to hurt in every way imaginable—of course he might just not have enough imagination.

The universe did have ways of surprising him, he supposed. He'd have never thought that such a simple sight could stab at him so, and he'd never thought he'd get knocked unconscious by the dreadlock of a walking willow tree in an effort to 'help' him.

Finally, he tore his eyes away, turning back to the window. There was little he could do but stare at his own reflection, trying to push back the unhelpful things running through his mind, such as wondering what Rose looked like now. They'd gotten a few distant, pixilated images attached to text several times, but it wasn't what he wanted. He wanted up-close and personal. 

He wanted… that statue in the British museum (was it inappropriate to steal it? he had made it, after all. Was there a statute of limitations on reclaiming lost property?)… no. He didn't even want that. That was frozen in time. He was strangely—and very suddenly—obsessed with the effects of time on Rose, he who couldn't stand to watch those around him age and decay and die. He wanted to see the laughter lines around her eyes, wanted to see if and how her body had filled out over the years.

Rubbing the back of his neck, the Doctor blinked the last bits of drugged sleepiness away. It was somehow fitting that someone else's' birthday should leave him completely knackered.

Either way, Violet wasn't keeping the hairstyle. "Alright. Fine. Ok. What do we have? Talking 'tree gods' as you put it, some sort of infection, weeds, paradise, two Roman coins and a ball of string. Am I missing anything?"

Bouncing off of the bed, where she'd thrown herself again, Violet took a moment to look at his reflection in the glass, trying to see what he was seeing. Mostly trying to figure out where the ball of string was factoring into this. "Uh…they're not mad at you? The tree gods that is. Apparently the plant people are evolving into rooted plants, like the trees and the weeds are going to undo that."

His jaw locked as his teeth ground for a moment, and then she saw it.

Her hand snapped out. "Give me your coat." When he hesitated, she ordered him to give it to her again, and he actually shrugged out of the thing.

She walked over to the wall sconce with it. "What're you doing…" he asked cautiously.

"Burning it." She said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

The Doctor tried to snatch it back from her. "Hey, wait!"

Not quite tall enough to reach, she climbed back onto the bed, trying to get the last few inches she needed. "The weeds, they're on your coat. That's how they got out of their cell." Duh.

Before she could set it on fire, he snatched the coat out of her hands, eyes wide. "Too late. I've already come in contact with too many people. That's the infection they were talking about." He grabbed her hand, all distractions of hair and brown eyes that were round like marbles forgotten. "We have to find that attendant. If anyone's 'infected,' it's him."

Violet almost stumbled as he dragged her toward the door. The living, woven surface flew opened when they were but a few feet away, Anil standing before them, wide-eyed and trembling. She was pale, the green blanched from her skin as pink flushed her cheeks and hands. Whatever it was, it was serious enough to drive her out of her cozy corner of the city, and enough to make the always-placid plant woman visibly afraid. "Good. I've found you. Little Flower, there is a great problem that you must see."

Not bothering to shut the door, they fled after Anil, down the hall and to the grand staircase, trying to keep up with the tall, lithe woman.

Oh yeah. Next birthday they were staying in. The Doctor was thinking movie, hot chocolate, and early to bed. No ruined cakes, no witch-hunts, no invasion forces of alien dandelions.

TBC…


	5. Chapter 5

Standard disclaimers. Thanks to Erica, Krypto and Em for beta help. Youse awesomes.

This one's for zanna, who was disappointed that there were no zombies.

XYZ

Greenhouse Effect

Chapter 5

XYZ

Hands rammed into his pockets, the Doctor turned away from the glass window supported in a mossy stone doorframe and looked Anil in the eye. "I'd say that's a 'great problem,' as you put it."

They had followed Anil back to her shop, then to the second floor, which had a real solid door on one of the rooms. She said most of the room was stone; it was where she tried new beauty aids. Violet was dying to ask what sort of beauty aids needed a fire-proof room, but they'd been a bit busy working on the problem at hand.

Anil wrung her hands, paying the Doctor no attention. "He's infected," she told Violet. "He's become like them—like the weeds."

Violet glared at the Doctor. He was doing it again. "A hand up?"

He looked to the glass, then to her. "Oh yeah…you're a midget." It was as if he'd just suddenly realized she was too short to see through the glass in the door. Hoisting her up, he let her have a good look. It wouldn't be too long before she was too heavy to do this with. Hopefully that'd mean she'd be tall enough that he wouldn't need to. Peering over her shoulder, he squinted at the attendant. "Did he just eat that jar?"

Before the Doctor put her down, Violet watched the willow man destroying the room. It wasn't rage that motivated him. Had it been rage, his arms would have been over his head as he thrashed things about. He didn't seem to have the energy for it; in fact, his arms were stiff and nearly immobile, never rising above his shoulders.

The attendant looked frightening—he was pale, his jaw hung slack, and all the life had gone out of his eyes—like the zombie movies Violet wasn't allowed to watch. Still. End up sniffling and crying in the control room ONE night because you watch Shawn of the Dead…She knew the Doctor liked his 'quiet time' with the ship after she went to bed, but banning horror movies was just too much. Maybe she could get him to lift the ban, now that she was into the double digits. Pigs may also fly. On Earth, not on the planets where pigs really flew.

Anil had turned her head away. "I fear so. There was nothing toxic in it." Pounding on the glass with heavy hands, the prisoner looked at her and she shuddered. The vacancy behind his dark pupils was…unnerving. Her fingers came up to the glass, regret and tears catching in her throat when she spoke. "Grenar—what have you gotten yourself into?"

Both of the adults took a step away from the door. "What?" Violet asked. Maybe stilts. She could get stilts and be as tall as the Doctor.

"Is this room sealed?" the Doctor asked, looking at the moss around the door.

Anil shook her head. "Not…hermetically, or anything of that sort. It's just a damage-resistant work room."

The moss on the outside of the door was turning grey as it changed into…something else, causing Anil to back up a few more feet.

The Doctor contemplated it, almost as if he were trying to figure out where to start carving a turkey. "Damage resistant—against WHAT? You said the stuff in that jar wasn't toxic. I didn't smell any of the typical hair chemicals when we came in here. So what do you do in there?"

Anil glanced away. "Not all plant products are…neutral oils and such. Some are quite unpredictable, or have non-neutral properties like the Anx flowers that light the city at night. Sometimes, I'm asked for special concoctions. Not just knotty root solvents. Sometimes Grenar asks for other things." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "A few times, even…pesticides."

The Doctor tried to get some sort of reading with the sonic screwdriver from the moss, trying to determine how it was changing chemically. "A fat lot of good they're doing him now. It's a bit wrong, you know, but insanely clever—making pesticides from organic material. Holistic, all-natural, organic pesticide. Kill a plant with a plant."

The grey spread to the door frame, the knotty living wood turning a dark color as it dried out, cracking before their eyes. "He promised it was never for…us. Our people."

"Oh, sure. That makes it alright, then. Do you use it on your visitors, then?"

There was a look in Anil's eyes. It changed from surprise that he could ask something so callous to some other shade of surprise. "I—I have never asked. Grenar kept the company of the Old Willow. One does not question the Old Willow."

They took two more steps back as the wall began to crack and groan. "Old fellow, no leaves on his branches?"

Taking Violet's hand, Anil actually put herself between the graying wall and the girl. "I have never seen him. The Old Willow is…not a public figure."

Peeking from behind the soft material of her friend's skirt, Violet watched the tendrils of grey slither up the wall. "The priests. The trees were talking about priests. They said the 'enemy' was slowly infecting the priests."

Anil shook her head. "Grenar is no priest. He's an employee of the colony, an attendant of the docks. He sees to the needs of guests. What do the trees need with a priesthood?"

Obviously this was a secret priesthood. "Wait," the Doctor turned, looking down at Violet. "Priests, priests plural?"

The girl nodded, sure she was remembering correctly.

"We need to find Old Willow," both of them said simultaneously.

XYZ

Anil had told them that she hadn't kept any of the pesticides. The Doctor ordered her to begin concocting something out of what she had available, even if she didn't have everything necessary because it was locked in with the dock attendant, Grenar, ready to use it on the infected walls and door, to see if it did any good.

She'd told him it wasn't safe for plants, but he ordered her to use it anyway. There was no time to find a delicate, socially acceptable way to destroy the weeds, if Grenar's reaction was anything to judge by. It was like treating a cancer—it was unfortunate, but some of the good plant life would most certainly have to be sacrificed with the weeds.

He promised he'd return as quickly as possible, but urged her to have something ready to use, since he was probably going to be hauling back another infected soul.

With that, he and Violet took off toward the edge of town, headed for the grassy hills. They made it as far as the center of the colony, before they saw it—the streets around them slowly filling with vegetation-based inhabitants. Every one was pale and turning white-grey, regardless of whether it was their natural color or not, as the chlorophyll was eaten away from their skin.

Tree-people, with their enormous, leafy hair milled around, the least aggressive of the forming groups. Flowering people, their petals dropping as the change took place, began knocking over any object that would budge—large boxes Violet assumed were for the post, planters hosting small trees…the uninfected.

The paler they became, the more focused the group mentality appeared to be. They were practically running through the streets, trying to avoid the collecting packs of plant-zombies. "I'm going to have nightmares about this," Violet breathed when they ducked around the corner of a cathedral-like tree to catch their breath.

The Doctor wasn't listening. The gears were turning in his head, she could see that. "It's eating the chlorophyll right out of them. They're just devouring anything they can get their hands on…like fungi. Well, not entirely like fungi. Fungi usually wait until dinner is dead. But I guess these things HAVE to be fast moving, if they're going to conquer the entire population of a planet before a defense can be raised." He'd seen some lichen in that stasis field. "I think they're the first wave. Subdue the population, then the ragweed and dandelion have carte blanch to do whatever the heck it is that they feel like. Genius, really, when you think about how--"

Violet peeked around the corner. Shoot. They were coming. Something like a hundred or so. "That's great. Fungus zombies. I'll write home about it," she said testily, seeing more zombies coming in the other direction. She REALLY hated when he had ADD moments, sometimes. "Now tell me how we get out of here!" They were running out of directions, and he was figuring out the ranking system of the Army of Darkness (which had also given her nightmares).

Sighing, the Doctor dragged her TOWARD the first group, which she thought was an insanely bad plan. Hadn't he seen Dawn of the Dead? SHE had. In fact, she'd bedded down in the control room, rolled up in a sleeping bag for a week. But that wasn't the point—once they get hold of you, they eat you. Ok, so these weren't blood sucking monsters, per say, but she WAS going to be eaten by plants. She just KNEW how this day was going to turn out.

Before they could be eaten, however, he'd surreptitiously hoisted her into an open window, pulling himself through as quietly as possible. The cherry-wood woman making dinner looked at them as if they were mad, her opening her mouth in shock.

"Sorry, just passing through," he informed her courteously, looking around the kitchen area, a spacious area of twisted branches and rubbery vines, smelling of spices and fresh-cut vegetation. "Lovely home."

As he searched for the front door, the woman approached him with a large wooden spoon, pointing over his shoulder with it. "This isn't a hostel. That isn't a door."

"Right. Bit of trouble outside tonight. I'd recommend staying in-doors."

Before she could ask what that meant (trouble being such a foreign concept to these people, and all), the Doctor grabbed Violet's hand and dragged her to the freshly-discovered exit.

Violet followed him out the door, which put them on the other side of the pack they'd been heading towards, but it also put them further away from the edge of the city. The vegetation and buildings were slowly turning ugly and grey around them as they were taken over, dying to be reborn as…something else.

It made the girl shudder—she didn't want to think of the disaster that Anil's place must have fallen into by now, nor did she want to think of the danger to Anil herself. "Do you think she's alright?" Violet asked quietly as they ducked down an alley, which was really a thin tunnel between two cathedral-like tree-buildings, which stretched upward toward the dome.

Old Willow HAD to have been turned into a zombie by now; this was taking forever.

XYZ

Two more wrong turns and they finally made it out of the urban area (if it could be called that, when it was entirely made up of plant life). It was another five minutes of silent running to get out past the more sparsely populated edge of the city, into the still-green hills beyond 'civilization' as these people knew it.

In the darkness, Violet stumbled over a knotted lump of grass in the path, hitting the Doctor's legs with the full momentum of her flight. He almost lost his balance, but recovered quickly, hopping forward once before turning around. "Have to…keep going," he gasped, dragging her by the arm to her feet. "Just…up the hill."

Wiping her scraped hands on her jeans, Violet made no move to continue on. Now that her momentum was broken, she needed to catch her breath. She was quite good at running for her life. One had to be if one hung round with the type of company she kept. Still, she needed a moment. "Gimme…" she wanted to think up some amount of time that it would take to be ready to continue on, but couldn't quite think. She just kept huffing and puffing, her hand twisted around one of the buttons on his coat, using it to steady herself.

The Doctor's breathing had become a lot more regular a lot more quickly. "Can you catch up? I'll get up to the bunker--"

Violet shook her head. She wouldn't be able to follow him in this darkness. Especially since he was the only one who'd ever BEEN to this mythical bunker where the nasties were stored. "Why keep 'em here?" she asked suddenly, still panting for breath. "Why not just… destroy them? Leave them on the planet they came from? Why bring them here. It's like you're asking for this to happen."

Looking behind her at the city, which now had a crackling pink glow emanating from it, the Doctor shook his head. "I don't think we'd be quite in this situation right now, if any of this made any sense."

Taking in one last breath, Violet began walking, moving ahead of the Doctor at an even pace. Another minute or so, that was all she needed. And longer legs. Everything didn't need to make sense; she'd learned that lesson rather thoroughly the last few years. Well, it wasn't that it didn't need to make sense--it was just that they needn't always understand it themselves. Not everything was for them to know.

But everything in the universe had its own internal logic, even if that logic was known only to the thing itself. This thought caused her to start jogging again. "There's something else going on with the trees," she announced. "Or the priests. Something isn't right." And Old Willow was their only chance of figuring it out.

Mostly they needed to hope that he wasn't zombified already, and that he was still at the bunker, or in the vicinity. The Doctor had said that when they'd taken him from the chamber that had been so different from the bit of the bunker he'd seen, he realized he was in some cavernous space below the bunker. What was with the caves? Wasn't a rocky hillside attention to detail enough?

Pointing at the path he'd transversed earlier in the day, he turned, taking the lead from her. "Old Willow has answers, which we need. But even if we can't get to him, I betcha-betcha that the pesticides are in that cavern somewhere."

Violet gritted her teeth, not even wanting to think about the destruction that the pesticides would cause this place. They might as well just napalm the city and its' inhabitants—it'd probably have about the same effect. "We can't kill this place," she told him as she took his hand for help over a bolder in the path. "We did this. We have to find a way out of it."

Finding a few more footholds in the increasingly steep hillside, the Doctor nodded, not commenting on her use of the word 'we,' but wondering what it meant. Something had just shifted in their relationship, but, as usual, he'd be damned if he could figure it out.

His mind was attempting to work on both problems at once, and he was completely caught off guard when Violet told him to look at the moss-covered rock on top of the hill, about thirty feet above them.

He flattened against the steep slope, hoping they hadn't been noticed.

"I don't think I've ever…" she started, and then stopped.

Truthfully, he hadn't ever, either.

She crawled up beside him, looking at the figures on the top of the rock. "You realize, I'm going to be sleeping on the control room floor for a month after this." Her voice was very calm, but her hand had twisted around his coat again.

He didn't blame her, though. He'd never seen anything like the creatures above them, surveying the land they were about to conquer.

TBC…


	6. Chapter 6

Standard disclaimers. Thanks for the beta to Krypto. Hopefully this one'll be a little less epic than the last few lol.

XYZ

Greenhouse Effect

Chapter 6

XYZ

The Doctor had known some plant people in his day, which was going on four digits of time and space, so he'd had quite a bit in the way of chances. Hamaria, pleasant place, sentient man eating flowers planted around the palace. More specifically around his escape path from the dungeons.

There'd been the delightful Jabe, amazing roots, eyes you could fall into and dark skin like cream coffee…but due to circumstances beyond his control (weren't they all?) their friendship had ended before it really got started.

He'd met others—ultimately people were people and species had little to do with their capacity for good or ill. Take Violet's friend Anil. A pleasant, calming influence on the girl, yet possibly too naive for her own good.

The others he'd met here, even the duplicitous secret priests, had been nice—nicety being both, well, nice, and a clever economic model. Maybe that was the key to happiness—he'd always thought he'd be happier if he were reincarnated a dog. Apparently Zen was being reincarnated as a heliotrope. Sure he was mixing his religions, but contentment with your lot in life was contentment with your lot in life, and then he wouldn't have ended up a tinkerer and an outcast.

Yeah, he could retire here. Get himself a little hut made out of some nice smelling tree…live out the remainder of his days, or at least until he got bored, which would be in under a week. But it was the thought that counts.

Of course, all of these plans, finding religion and retiring were entirely dependant on a few things. Two, to be exact. First, he had to figure out what these things were, and how to stop them.

Because these were not weeds.

Well, they were weeds, technically. But they were NOT the cute little things in stasis in the bunker. These were… Little Shop of Horrors. Gone horribly wrong.

Violet nudged him with her elbow, never taking her eyes off of them. Six of them—nine feet tall, who knew how far their vines stretched out. "Plan?"

He shrugged, contemplating their opponents' barbed exteriors and the almost metallic look of their prickly evil dandelion blooms. Their 'heads' turned as they surveyed the land, but he couldn't find anything resembling an ocular organ, or any other sensory organs for that matter, he had no idea how they were perceiving.

Which would have been good to know, mostly so he could avoid getting caught. "I've got nothing," he grumbled, still trying to work on it. She was so impatient.

Her hand twisted his coat sleeve so hard, it was starting to cut off circulation to his wrist. "You'd better hurry up," she whispered, her voice trembling just a tiny bit.

She was right; he was going to have to deal with her sleeping on the control room floor every night, and following him around like a lost puppy all day for heavens knew how long. For the life of him, the Doctor couldn't figure out how she could destroy an entire hive of vampires—the hard way, with pointy sticks, he might add—and still couldn't watch a horror film.

And if that was the case, why was this 'real-life' situation so frightening to her now? "Vi, I'm working on it," he sighed. Did she think good plans grew on trees?

She twisted his sleeve a bit harder, and he moved one hand away from the rock he was using for balance, and began to disengage her fingers from the material. "I just…have a problem," the girl breathed. "It's a bit of a big one."

Opening his mouth to inform her that it was either a bit of a problem or a big problem, but when he looked down to deliver his clever wisdom, he saw it. Grabbing the hand that had not been engaged in twisting the life out of his wardrobe, he turned her arm over, back and forth, looking at the damage. "Vi, SAY something next time," he hissed. She came to him, complaining about every little scratch, but THIS she decides to tough out.

She had a small scratch on the back of her arm, possibly a product of when she'd fallen on the path. Blood puckered in little beads at the surface. That wasn't what worried him, however. It was her skin. It had grown pale, radiating outward from the wound. It reached all the way down to her fingertips and extended almost up to the elbow. And he didn't mean pale the way the rest of her had gone pale and clammy, he meant pale—the pigmentation was being eaten away as the infection radiated.

Loosening his tie, he yanked it off, twisting it around her upper arm, just above the elbow. Tying it tighter than he knew was comfortable, he attempted to stop further spread, though it wasn't certain how successful that would be. Small fan-like ridges were forming around the knuckles, some sort of lichen taking hold of her. "Just started," she muttered. "It was fast. Went a little cold, and then it was like that"

She was starting to make less and less sense. Pulling back her eyelids, he checked her over quickly with the basic diagnostic setting of the sonic screwdriver. There was no telling how fast this thing would spread in a non-plant-based life form, so he had no idea of how long he had. For now, at least, the spread seemed to slow around the tie. He couldn't leave that on there forever, either, if she wanted to keep all of her fingers. "Alright. Thinking of something sooner, rather than later."

Simple plans are sometimes the best, he decided. Grabbing some sizeable rocks, he began chucking them quickly, making sure their arc was lower than the rock the dandelions were perched upon. They hit the base of the rock, on the other side, away from the Doctor and Violet.

Hoisting the last one, he stopped, when he saw the dandelions moving toward the noise. They hadn't seen him, or the flight path of the rocks.

Without being told, Violet scrambled to her feet, still fast enough and strong enough to make it over the top of the rock and down the other side of the hill, but she was unsteady. He kept a hand reached out towards her, just in case. This would be a hell of a height to tumble down from.

The bunker door was opened from the inside, the metal twisted and warped outward. Stepping through the mess, he began jogging down the access tunnel. "Old Willow?" he called out cautiously. The name echoed off the smooth walls, but there was no response.

Pressing onward, they stopped at the sharp bend which lead to the final hall before the prison room. Violet was bent over clutching the wall, out of breath, as she'd been earlier. "You can stay here, you know," the Doctor offered. She was damned stubborn though, and he knew if she was capable of crawling or dragging herself, she'd do it. He blamed and thanked Jackie for that.

When she looked up at him, her hair flipped around and then he saw the intense look in her eyes, which had grown very dark with her pupils dilated. "No. The trees—the trees have been tricked. The trees have been manipulated."

"By the weeds?" This was a weird conversation, even for them.

She panted, still struggling for breath, but never blinking. Definitely weird. The Doctor checked her arm, which was clutching the wall, quickly. The infection hadn't spread too much further, even if the fungus was now crusting around all of her fingers. He wasn't sure why she hadn't been… zombified by now. If that was even a word.

The girl's good hand grabbed his coat, bunching it into her hand tightly with the intensity of her revelation. "No. The weeds were pawns. They both were. Something far worse has done this. Something far worse wants them free, but contained here. As they weren't contained on Aktan. Contained... and useable."

Great. "We're being manipulated too."

This bit of effort seemed to take quite a bit out of her. She pressed her cheek to the cool stone, closing her eyes. "Yes. No."

He liked decisive answers like that. "We are, or we aren't."

"We're the spanner in the soup."

Ok, he mixed religions, occasionally metaphors, but he had NO idea what the hell THAT was.

When her head slumped forward to her chest, he stopped caring, however. "Hey, come on. Caves are around here somewhere, we'll get you fully medicated and back on your feet, and we'll--"

"It happened early. This should have happened…in a thousand years. Larger, more docile population." Moaning, she leaned forward and threw up.

Whatever chemicals the fungus was excreting into her system, it was blocking her natural inhibitions towards using her genetic abilities as a Time Lord. Time Person, as she called them—Lords and Ladies were far too stuffy, imperialist and classist for her. He'd thank Jackie for that bit of rubbish floating around in her head later.

Unfortunately, the fungus' byproduct had torn down the inhibitions a little too much, including that self-preservation boundary that seemed to be built into the species, and she was seeing ALL the possibilities, which was a little more than she could handle. Especially since she refused to attempt it in normal circumstances, and therefore was entirely unpracticed at filtering everything currently rushing through her head. Chalk one up for him, though. Her mind was at least organized enough that she could be mostly coherent about what she saw.

Rubbing her back as the last bits of tea and stomach juice dripped from her lips, he gave her a moment to compose herself. "Alright. So it happened early—which means I'm not quite as hopeless of a cock-up as you were implying earlier." If this was happening early, then the plants were being denied army recruits by the smaller colony population. It also meant that they were there to stop this. "So, grand-grand scheme of things, we're doing kind-of alright." Even if they were being manipulated. Possibly not by the entity that had manipulated the trees (and the weeds for that matter), but by something else working against said other entity.

He rather missed the days when the Time Lords were at the top of the 'order of the universe' food chain. Ok, maybe they weren't the top, but they were certainly the zoo keepers. There were enough of them to see things like this as they were developing. As it was now, he was one person running around the jungle with a whip and hoping for the best.

"Oh," she muttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. "And Tiger Stripes is in Storage Number Nine. He's eating spare wires." The last was said a bit more lightheartedly, as if she were returning to herself.

Damned cat. She'd blackmailed him into it a few years ago. Not much he could do when she sends her mother an email saying that the Doctor agreed to get her a cat. Which they'd had track of for about two days. Now the thing popped up every once in a while, usually with some deceased thing clutched between its teeth as a present. It would make its deposit, then scamper off again into the ship, not to be seen or heard from again for days or weeks. He almost didn't WANT to know what the evil little creature was up to, most of the time.

"That's fine," he reassured her. "Maybe we'll find him when we get back." And Earth-pigs may one day fly.

A few deep breaths later and the girl had righted herself. Standing up straight, she looked around her, as if she had no idea where they were. "Alright."

He guessed that meant it was ok to continue. Taking her good hand, he lead her towards the caves. The growths on the other hand were considerably larger, but it hadn't spread too far past the tie at her elbow. What they needed was a really REALLY good anti-fungal cream.

Finding the hidden door in the wall, the Doctor looked for the mechanism that had been used to trip the thing open. "I'm thinking… carnivorous dinosaurs, next time," he told Violet, finding the small indentation. "Seems safer."

Looking down into the dark tunnel, she didn't step through.

"What?" He knew she slept with the nightlight on, but this was not a time to get squeamish. They had some Little Shop rejects to defeat.

Violet looked him in the eye, and he knew it was starting again. "Come on," he encouraged. "I know you can control it, if you try. And you have to. If you don't keep a lid on the bottle, you'll end up…" barmy…cracked…crazy. Off living by themselves, the crazy prophesizing witch in the woods on some quaint planet where other Time Lords couldn't try to 'talk some sense' into them. Didn't happen very often, with his people, but every generation or so, someone would either spend too long contemplating the possibilities, despite the warnings and danger, or someone would simply lack the capacity to control everything flying around in there.

He almost left her there. He wasn't sure how much longer before the city fell, and they needed to stop this. But she was lost somewhere, and he couldn't bare the thought of her coming back to the here and now and being alone.

Her eyes focused again, but just past him. "Oh God," she muttered. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not important. Lets just keep going."

"Don't be mad," she begged him. "Don't be mad when I do it. Or sad. Good will come of it."

Not waiting for an explanation, he grabbed her arm, dragging the girl behind him. It was for her own good; he couldn't let her continue on like this. She'd be frozen there forever. "There's no such thing as destiny," he told her, which was only a partial truth. "If it's going to make me angry, just don't do it. There. Now that we've got that settled."

"What?"

He looked down at her. "Huh?"

Stumbling over her own two feet as they went, Violet blinked, seeming to have come back to him. "Huh? What'd I say?"

Figures. The only way for her to regain control was complete suppression of the incident—she didn't remember a thing she'd said. Her capacity for suppressing her own abilities was almost boggling. If she ever channeled that capacity towards actually using them…HE might have a hard time keeping up with her. "Nothing. Come on; follow the smell of steam and metal. Which I think I've figured out, sort of. Those dandelions—their petals are some kind metal-plant hybrid. The priests are some kind of plant-animal hybrid, which means we have a chance with Old Willow. But lets just keep going."

There was a bit of desperation in the last that he hadn't intended to slip out. He hadn't even known he felt it, but there was something about the whole prophecy business that left him eager to just get this over-with.

Violet tried to flex her right hand, but the barnacle-like buildup wouldn't allow for it. It made a few stretching sounds, like clacking of dragon scales, but wouldn't give any further. "This is the worst."

Seeing a large, fairly well-lit opening up ahead, they quickened their pace. The Doctor glanced at the damage—the grey was trailing up her shoulder now and the growths were bulky and glove-like. "Could be worse," he informed her with an annoying cheerfulness. "Ya could be a plant zombie."

Violet stopped in her tracks, staring ahead, and the Doctor was afraid it was going to happen again. He wasn't sure how many more of those incidents she could come back from, especially if the fungus was secreting increased quantities of chemicals into her system as it grew.

But for the moment, he didn't have to worry about that. She was staring at Old Willow, who was glowing from the torso like a smoldering piece of incense.

His branches were snapped off and his white face wore the slacken expression of the infected. The old tree's eyes bespoke the battle waging inside him. Taking in a wheezing breath, he held up a thin arm-branch, warding them off. "Stay…Back."

Which, of course, meant that Violet just had to rush straight toward him.

TBC…


	7. Chapter 7

Standard disclaimers. Thanks to Krypto for the betaing, if that's what you were really doing. Except the last section. He won't read that. Like… really.

Greenhouse Effect

Chapter 7

XYZ

Why did they always do that? The burning tree-man tells you to stay away, and what do you do? Run straight towards it! Yes! That was the perfectly LOGICAL course of action. Sort of like when he said 'don't wander off,' which was apparently universal secret code for 'please wander off—and while you're at it, please put yourself in mortal danger.'

Violet ran past him, and he breathed a sigh of relief. That was, until she went to one of those bulky computers and picked something up, making her way back with purpose. She'd found a poker, knocking the hot coal away with her unsteady left hand from Old Willow. The red smoldering bark of his torso began losing its dangerous red glow. "Why're you doing that!" she screamed at the elder, irrationally. "Why're you doing it?"

If they weren't in such dire straights, he'd try to analyze exactly why she was going into a frenzy over this. However, Old Willow let out a moan of anger, his arm swatting towards her. He was becoming like 'them.' The zombies. The old tree was fighting, it; it hadn't happened so quickly, but it was a losing battle. So he'd done the only thing he could think of—the self-sacrificial thing to be sure that he was not the result of infection for any more of his people.

Apparently Violet hadn't approved of his sacrifice. Before Old Willow could reach for her again, the Doctor dragged the girl back out of arm's reach. "Thanks for checking that plan with me first," he muttered.

The girl tried to shrug him off angrily, but he kept his grip tight. "Don't."

Pulling her back a few more feet, he shook his head. "Don't you think he knew what he was doing? There's nothing he can do, other than try to protect others from himself." It had come out in a 'scolding' sort of way, which he hadn't meant it to be—she believed she was doing the right thing by saving the tree elder.

With a wide, arcing twist, Violet escaped from his grasp, almost hitting him with the poker in the process. "Fix it!" Looking at the Doctor, she pointed to Old Willow. He was incapacitated with the smoking damage done to him, but he was still writhing, reaching to make contact and spread the disease. "Fix him! Fix him now!"

Her voice was shrill and cracking. It hurt to listen to. "Violet, listen to me. Keep your head, or there won't be anything that we can do for Anil and the others. What Old Willow's done has been done." He didn't want to mention that Old Willow was still dying—she had only managed to prolong the inevitable, and painfully at that.

This wasn't about Old Willow for her, or even Anil, though the mention of her name had stopped the girl's irrational thrashing. This was solely about Violet. The white streaks had traveled past her shoulder and were crawling up her neck. For the first time that he could recall, she was really afraid—deathly afraid over something.

The last few years had been filled with many unfortunate lessons that he'd never wanted to be visited upon a child; the loss of her home and family, the loss of friendship, the irrevocable loss of friends. The cruelty of the universe, the cruelty of its inhabitants to one another. The painful lesson of one's own mortality wasn't for a child of ten years' age.

As he pulled the poker out of her hand, he gave her a brief hug and dragged her gently toward the narrow opening of some other chamber he had yet to explore. The sounds of Old Willow's writhing echoing off the walls behind them caused an involuntary wince. "I'm so sorry," he whispered to the tree, whose eyes had gone dark, and who, because of this, hopefully wasn't feeling any more pain. The Doctor also didn't entirely trust this hope.

The only thing that would be worse than this lesson of her personal mortality would be the painful lesson of her own immortality. The day when she realized why he traveled, never staying anywhere in one place long enough to grow attached and why traveling companions parted ways after such a short period of time. The day she really came to comprehend that she'd watch everyone around her decay and die—EVERYONE. Always.

He almost didn't want to be there, to see the devastation in her eyes when she realized exactly why the Time Lords had kept 'fraternizing' with other species to a minimum. At the same time—he couldn't and wouldn't let her be alone when that revelation hit. He'd comfort her, and he'd lie to her and tell her that everything would be alright.

"Just keep going," he whispered in a calm, steady voice. "It's got to be here somewhere. He had to get that coal from somewhere. Follow the smell of steam and metal."

It was a stretch that the pesticides would be wherever that metal was, but if worth came to worst, as it was quickly turning, a large source of sustainable fire would be helpful.

But right now, as it stood, he had nothing. Something was better than nothing, especially if he could use it to help the pale, trembling girl he continually had to nudge forward. "Face of Boe says hi," she muttered. "He's nice."

The passage narrowed, and it was difficult to urge her forward. She was zoning out again. He probably should have been grateful that he'd had her 'with it' for that long, despite what had happened with Old Willow. Turning her sideways, he tried to get her to go forward like that. "A little further. I think it's about to widen out again,"

A strange strangled chuckle escaped from the girl.

Yup. Gone. Completely and totally.

He just continued urging her through the narrow passage, trying to keep her from getting clipped by the porous jutting rocks. Placing a hand on the girl's head, he forced her under a broken piece that was obstructing the opening. Which left him with a bit of a problem. He was already standing sideways, and now he had to figure out how to crouch down, too, which really wasn't possible, what with there being no place for his knees to bend to.

Sliding himself in the poorly-lit restricted space, he tried to maneuver himself lower, twisting his legs around so that he could bend them back the way he'd come. Violet had no idea that the midget thing really did work to her advantage now and again. Of course, with his luck, she'd grow to be as tall as Anil, then she'd promptly begin blaming the Doctor for this as well. Theirs was… a special relationship.

Wiggling around, he managed to get one hand on the ground and with the other he grabbed the overhanging rock, pulling himself through. On the other side, he landed in the dirt, still trying to untangle his legs and coat from the tiny opening. Looking back at the claustrophobic dark space, he decided he'd be quite happy never doing that again.

When the Doctor got to his feet, he looked at the source of the metallic smell, towering and flickering in front of him. An enormous iron pot with something that smelled like copper boiling inside, a shoulder-high mound of coal was glowing beneath the whole thing. The steam and smoke rose up, disappearing into the craggy ceiling of the cave.

Along the wall were metal barrels, and the Doctor could guess what was in those. In one corner, off by itself was a mustard-colored mound of glistening chunks and powder—it'd probably smell like rotten eggs in here, if it weren't for the bitter smell of burning coal and metallic tang of the copper. Drawing in the air, he ran a hand over his face as the heat hit him and the smoke stung his eyes.

The flickering light from the fire threw dramatic shadows that dodged back and forth across the entire space. He squinted, looking through them for Violet. Of course she was gone. He wanted to smack himself, and ask how he could have thought it'd be some other way.

One day, everything would go according to plan. That would be the day he used a regeneration on dying of shock and astonishment. "Violet? Now's not a time to wander off…" he wasn't really expecting one, but there was no response.

Heading for the nearest barrel, he pulled the large plastic plug from the top, sniffing. Fungicide.

He felt like it made him a bad person (like this was somehow the tipping point), but he didn't look for her. Odds were probably 50/50 that she'd get herself into trouble and 28/72 that she could get herself out again. He was only spotting her the 28 because, despite her protestation, she did have an incredible amount of luck. She had, after all, managed to live until her tenth birthday.

XYZ

Opening the other four barrels, the Doctor passed them through various sniffing and taste-tests. All varieties of fungicide. The zombie problem appeared to be fungus-based, so that was a good thing. It didn't solve the problem of the mutant dandelions, however. There was also the added issue of how to distribute it in something resembling an effective manner. It wasn't like he had a whole lot of time, or anything even vaguely like dispersal method for that matter.

So how had the priests planned on doing it? If you wanted to distribute entire barrels full of anti-fungus to an entire population of plants, how would you do it?

Spray. Maybe he could find the system that generated the atmosphere and cause it to rain. Probably some sort of pipage running beneath the city…Pump it into there… then he'd have to get the barrels to wherever said system was, unless there was some kind of some infrastructure that lead to whatever produced the humidity in the atmosphere and the rain.

This place was complicated, and he had no idea how it worked. Figuring that out could take forever. Tapping a finger against the last metal barrel impatiently, he watched the hypnotic wisps of smoke rising from the coals. They rolled past the enormous cauldron, sliding to the ceiling with incredible speed, getting lost among the stalactite, never collecting and never returning. Like smoke signals to heaven.

That was it, exactly.

Slamming the plug back onto one of the barrels, he tilted it back onto an edge and wiggled the thing over to the fire. This was going to take some maneuvering to set up, but once he had it going, this would be grand. Especially once he added some sulfur to the concoction. Sulfur by itself wasn't all that flammable, but he happened have a sonic screwdriver and an interest in chemistry.

XYZ

Her arm itched and burned. When she could finally think again, that was her first, third and fourth thought. Violet's second thought was dedicated to wondering where she was. It was dark, she was going up. The passage was narrow and every time she bumped her arm, it made her whimper.

Knowing why she was going up would have been good, too. But as the haze left her, she'd simply found herself in a dark space between cave walls, putting one foot in front of the other. She remembered most of getting down here. The rest…she was tired. Her head hurt, her arm was now this heavy, painful mutant thing, and everything was a blur.

There was the temptation to lay down where she was, and sleep, but that couldn't be right. She didn't know why she started up this passage, so she didn't know if it was safe to go back. That only left one thing: putting one foot in front of the other. She needed to just keep going, until she found the surface or the Doctor or both.

It was alright, she reasoned in her own tired little way. He'd find her. He always found her. At first, when she was younger, she didn't want to get separated. He called it 'clingy.' She called it prudent; she didn't know if she'd be able to actually do anything right and didn't want to end up as being yet another problem.

Now? Well, the Doctor was perfectly capable of getting himself into messes. Sometimes, if they were separated, it worked out better because that meant one party had a prayer of not being in the worst of the trouble.

Trying to steady herself with one hand as she climbed over an obstruction in the normally smooth path created by some ancient water flow, she yawned. At least her head was clearing a little. She'd never really been sick, well, other than her weak stomach (which was NOT psycho-somatic, no matter WHAT the Doctor said), so this was kind of new to her.

When the path evened out again, she took to cradling her mutant arm to her chest, holding it there with her other hand. Sweat dripped from her forehead, burning her eyes. It was a good thing there was nothing to see anyway, she thought as the passage began to widen. It opened up into the cement bunker a second or two after that. Which way to go from there?

The decision was made for her a second later, though as she quickly wiped away the moisture from her face.

She'd like to recant that last bit about nothing to see. However, she'd like an extra helping of 'can't' see. Then she could continue living in blissful ignorance of the giant evil dandelions ten feet in front of her, with their golden glistening leaves that sang like knives when they brushed together.

Their blossoms turned toward her, and she knew that she had been spotted. Why in the UNIVERSE had she come up here?

XYZ

The Doctor admired his handiwork. Foggers. Deciding that the smoke wasn't building up because it was either escaping to the surface or being recycled into the city's artificial atmosphere, he double-checked the contents of the barrels, made a few 'sonic' type adjustments to allow for the new distribution method without losing effectiveness when the liquid was turned to a gas. Not only was he just that good, Bob really WAS his uncle. Bob just didn't know it yet.

They rose to a boiling point quickly with the amount of heat he had access to. His biggest task originally was making sure the barrels were far enough away from the coals to not melt the metal and to not superheat the liquid too quickly. That'd just cause a massive explosion which would probably bring the hillside down on top of him, which would really, REALLY be a lousy end to a lousy day.

Parts of the city had already been burning when he'd come down here. He wondered if there was anything left up there to even save. Keeping to the walls, so as to avoid the smoke and the noxious smell, he began looking around for all places Violet could have wandered off to. There were a few crevices that were child-sized, which didn't inspire confidence. She couldn't have gone back up the one they'd come down, he couldn't find anything beyond this chamber…

Above, he heard a shriek. It wasn't one of pain, it wasn't one of terror, per say. Mothers were supposed to be able to tell the different types of baby cries, hunger, wet, cold… Too bad he also didn't have some sort of instinct that told him exactly what kind of scream that Violet was making. Not anger, not the typical 'frightened out of my mind by a movie' shriek he was used to from her…Warning, maybe?

Violet came tumbling out of a window-like hole about twenty feet away, landing on her back and scrambling away from the hole as quickly as her unsteady feet could take her, staggering towards him. Reaching out an arm, he caught her before she fell.

Ribcage rising and falling like pistons, she tried to suck in air. Her eyes were glassy, but wide with fear. It was evident from her opening and closing jaw that she was trying to tell him what was coming, but she couldn't catch her breath.

There was no need for explanation, however, as the dandelion monsters spilled out of the hole, unfolding to their full height like clowns out of a tiny car. The Doctor stopped counting at twelve.

Assets…a ton of fungicide, some left-over sulfur sonic screwdriver, hyperventilating ten year old…

Once again, he was so completely and utterly doomed.

TO BE CONCLUDED….


	8. Chapter 8

Standard disclaimers. SWEAR this will go out unbeta'd if my beta doesn't stop playing Guild Wars and beta this thing…

So, we reach the end of another tale. Thanks to Erica, Em and Krypto for beta help throughout this fic, and for your superior awesomes. And yes, Em, we're closer to Jack, AND the Ultimate Goal. Promise and swear : )

Seriously tho, all of you folks reading are both swell and awesome with feedback and such. It's always helpful to know what you're enjoying, so I know to do more, because it's actually being effective. It's also very encouraging to write more.

I might be taking a brief hiatus to spit out a 9th Doctor story (you know me—brief hiatus usually means like a day or two LOL). So other than that… on with the show, y'all!

XYZ

Greenhouse Effect

Chapter Eight

XYZ

Grabbing Violet, the Doctor discretely headed behind the nearest barrels that weren't on the fire. They'd been spotted, but it seemed like the dandelions were taking their sweet time surveying the cavern.

Crouched semi-safely behind the copper barrel, he took the opportunity to look Violet over. She was doing far from well. Her jaw was white. The streaks extended from her shoulder across her collar bone, and were probably working their way down, but he couldn't see further than the collar of her shirt.

Despite the intense heat of the sweltering cavern, her skin was cold. Somehow she was still sweating profusely and her eyes seemed to go in and out of focus, as if she was with him, then leaving then returning very quickly now.

Keeping an arm around her, he kept her upright. She was entirely unsteady now, and he wasn't entirely sure what to do with her. He certainly couldn't leave her here, to be…whatever-ed by those things. But she wasn't up for running, and carrying her would not work out well, either, if he actually was going to follow through with any plan he hoped to concoct on the spot to get them out of this.

Which meant this was it. Whatever he was going to do, it was going to be here, and it was going to transpire very shortly.

There appeared to be about fourteen of them. Where had the others come from? He'd only seen six on that rock. Were there more of those things waiting out there? "That's…all of them," Violet muttered into his shoulder. "Wantta go home now."

He rubbed her wet, sweaty head and then brushed the hair away from her forehead. "Working on it." Alright. So she'd lead them down here, for some reason known only to herself, some possibility only she'd seen. "Open to suggestions."

She didn't have any, however. Her breathing became shallow, and he knew she was asleep. It was probably for the best—looking down at the bulky, misshapen mass that had been her arm, he saw that she had to be in a great deal of pain right now.

He probably should have kept Violet awake, though. He had no idea how these fungi affected non-plant life forms, and he'd probably have to see what was happening to the 'foreigners" in the population in order to judge a course of action and concoct something that'd take care of this—all of which was going to take more time than he had right now.

Looking around at the unused barrels, he realized exactly what he needed for the girl—he knew exactly what would get rid of this in a non-plant without killing it. Of course, he wasn't sure the priests had been planning on having to 'save' their non-native visitors as well as the city's rightful inhabitants. He needed to get her back to Anil's salon.

Something shiny and sharp went whizzing past his head, cutting into the metal of the barrel. He only just barely pulled himself and Violet out of its path. Landing on his back, he looked up at the long golden blade as the humming metal vibrated back and forth from the impact—it was a five-foot petal from a dandelion.

Looking up slowly, the Doctor saw that the dandelion in question had plenty more where that had come from, too. "Uh… hi," he started nervously, trying to shield Violet with his arm. "So, how're things?"

Bracing his shoulders on the ground on either side of the unconscious girl, he rolled with her past the leg-like roots of the dandelion, just barely escaping as two more petals of doom came flying at them.

First thing was first, he needed to get them out of immediate danger before he worked on the other problem. Even so—as he dragged her past the whip-like reach of another dandelion's vines, he couldn't help noticing how pale her lips had become. With the pigment drained, it made the blue that remained stand out all the more.

Scurrying between two barrels, he dragged her behind a group of containers. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all. He had nothing that'd kill the ugly, resistant creatures that sprung up on walkways and in cracks in retaining walls. If only these guys had been mushrooms, then he could have done something.

A tentacle-like vine slithered over one of the barrels, feeling for them. He had nothing to kill these things with, but he needed to. He could feel Violet's breathing becoming shallower and the seeming-hesitation of her heart beats.

They'd never discussed regeneration in anything other than the biology lesson sort of way, and knowing her, with her enormous capacity for denial, she wouldn't be able to accomplish it, simply because she didn't believe she could. That was—if she even could. Who knew what the effect of this…infection would be on her system?

The tentacle passed directly over the Doctor's head just as she let out a breath fully, and there was a long pause before she began slowly drawing in another. It didn't matter if he had no plan, it didn't matter if he had no CLUE. The time had come for the Gadarene headlong rush; there was nothing left to loose.

Of course, a few swine really WOULD have made a nice distraction right around then.

Gently propping Violet against the cave wall so that she was sitting upright, hopefully giving air the clearest possible passage into her lungs, the Doctor pulled his knees to his chest then kicked outward at the barrel. As soon as it hit the ground, the force bent the soft metal of the copper, causing the lid to pop off, throwing fungicide everywhere.

The four closest dandelions slithered back from the spillage, until they determined that it was nothing that could harm them.

The others were removing the boiling barrels away from the flames and stopped what they were doing for just a moment, attention turning directly to him. All proceeded forward, realizing that the Doctor was going to be a threat.

Looking at Violet, he knew he had to get the focus away from where she was hidden. Scrambling to his feet, the Doctor charged into the liquid, right through the middle of the pack with yell of bravado.

On the other side of the group, on the edge of the burning coals, in fact, he stopped, looking around. Weed killer, weed killer, weed killer…

He was drawing a blank, until more of those weird petal-blades come firing in his direction and he had to leap over some hot coals and practically do a dance to get around to the other side of the cauldron. Oh yeah. He was a complete and total idiot. He'd been far too hooked on pesticides to see the obvious.

Backing away from the cauldron, he waved. "Here, fishy fishy fishy…" They weren't fish, per say, but 'weedie weedie' didn't quite have the same ring to it.

Didn't matter to them—the dandelions approached, slithering around the red coals cautiously, surrounding him on either side. This'd work. Probably.

Hopefully.

XYZ

There was the whole 'insane amount of steam' thing. Then there was the whole part where said steam was the product of super-heating the remaining barrels of pesticides. What it came down to was two things; it was really hot, and the air wasn't what you could call…breathable.

After giving the dandelions the run-around, quite literally, by distracting them with a bit of sparks and magic thanks to the sonic screwdriver and the chemicals on the floor, he climbed over the barrels and snatched Violet up. Heading for the enclave the girl had tumbled out of, he had to dodge the killer petals and shake off the dandelion's vines, their barbs sticking into his coat, neck and the backs of his hands.

The tunnel was narrow and short, which meant he wouldn't be able to go up the entire way, he just needed to have a pocket of air, for when he solved his 'little problem.'

Reaching behind him with the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor scrambled the signal controlling the regulator for the iron cauldron. Hearing a crack, a glub and a deafening hiss, he turned back around, trying to stuff the hole behind them with his back, trying to stop any of the toxic fumes from getting near Violet. Her breathing was shallow enough—he didn't need to deal with poisoning her as well.

With that much liquid drawing the heat away from the coals and the copper, it wasn't very long before the hissing quieted, and he knew it was safe to go back down. Backing up, he slid out of the enclave, looking around at the handiwork.

The floor was covered in who-knew how many inches of cooling copper. The dandelions were frozen like statues in a park, their limbs and leaves twisted into painful, writhing abstract shapes. Their petals had melted, the metal-organic mixture apparently having a lower melting point than that of copper, which was already pretty low.

He didn't look at it too much, there were other things to attend to. He'd just needed to do a 'head count' as it were, and be sure he'd gotten all fourteen dandelions.

The rest… was just not important now.

Realizing that they hadn't gotten the barrels down those narrow shafts, the Doctor found a lift in an adjoining chamber. It was quite welcome—Violet was heavy. She was quite thin, which as amazing, considering how much she ate, and she certainly wasn't tall (or even average height) for her age, but she was hardly light. The barbs in his neck also burned every time he shifted her weight in his arms as the elevator rose.

At the surface, he sighed, looking at the damage. Smoking plumes rose up from the city. The fires were out, but the damage had been done. Some of the trees were skeletal husks, others that had been homes or business had been entirely burnt out. He couldn't see the people from there, but he had enough of an imagination to know what had become of the population. Fortunately they'd be safe now.

The fungicides, with the proper tweaking and recombining, would be absorbed by the population and would run through their sap and other fluids, basically acting as an immunization against future attacks. They would rebuild. It would be a natural consequence, but he still regretted the loss of the city's innocence. Perhaps one day they'd get it back.

The hillside was treacherously steep, especially when carrying semi-dead weight. The Doctor was glad for the first bits of dawn breaking in the artificial horizon, or it would have been worse. He couldn't go as quickly as he'd like, but the girl would never get sorted if they fell or worse. She trembled in his arms, pale and cold. He regretted the loss of her innocence as well.

The town had been in chaos. No one noticed or cared him hauling one more victim to somewhere within the city limits. He'd headed for Anil's shop. She'd probably have everything he needed there. The shop was in disarray. She was instructing several people on things to combine to get rid of the remaining 'pest' problems. The 'zombies' themselves had had their senses restored, but they had burns, cuts, lacerations…

When she turned around to see who else had come into her shop for help, Anil's face was dirty and smudged, the green pigment having run from her skin, leaving her pale and pink, like a sad, mournful fairy. The Doctor could see her heart breaking when she glanced at Violet in his arms. All he could do was ask to be pointed in the direction of the chemicals, promising that the situation was solvable—he could tell she had her hands full.

She dug through the pockets of her now smudged and dirty dress, pulling out a key made of the same crystal as the dome itself. "The workroom," she informed him. "Everything for animal-based life-forms is there."

The Doctor nodded, managing one more flight of steps with his heavy, fading charge.

Grenar dead on the floor, partially liquefied. He had no idea whether it was the cure or the disease that had killed him, or something that Anil had done. It did not matter; she had the haunted eyes of someone who'd lost a loved one. Dead was still dead, regardless of how it had come to be. For her own sake, however, he hoped the plant-woman hadn't been forced to take drastic actions that had resulted in what he saw before him.

Setting Violet in the chair made of vines, the Doctor set to work. It was two hours before he had her vitals stable, another hour after that before color began returning to her lips and face. It was all a tricky process; the cell structure of fungi and humanoids was exceptionally similar, both being Eukaryotes and all.

Fortunately, without even knowing it, Anil had been working very closely toward a polyene antibiotic that could 'tell the difference' between the fungal cells and human cells. Well, it couldn't, really. This culture was very far off of nano-technology, which really COULD tell, but was capable of binding with the ergosterol in the cell walls, leaving the 'animal' Cholesterol alone, thus effectively sorting fungus from person. He made a few modifications of his own to speed up the process and basically just hoped for the best.

Eventually, the cell walls broke down and the foreign cells liquefied. Seeing it happen, the Doctor understood what had become of the attendant—he'd had the appearance of a willow, but apparently had more animal genetics in him than was safe. The Doctor still had no idea why the priests were hybrids. That was probably something only the trees could answer. Anil might have been trying to help Grenar, but had ended up killing him instead. Not that the disease wouldn't have gotten him eventually—but he knew the young woman would always carry the guilt with her. There were some thing that the Doctor knew only too well.

Still asleep but finally stable, the Doctor bandaged Violet's broken skin. He wrapped her up tightly in his coat then departed for the TARDIS, leaving Anil to aid her people.

He thought back to Gwyneth in Cardiff, and how upset Rose had been that no one would know of her sacrifice. It was likely that history would never remember what this hairdresser had done—but Violet would remember, as Rose had. He knew that the girl was like her mother in that regard—that appreciation for the individual and for those small moments in time that he might have otherwise overlooked.

An entire civilization saved by the meddlings and contraband of a beautician. It was fantastic, really.

Of course, the young woman wouldn't see it that way—she'd lost what the Doctor guessed to be the love of her life. All the people she helped now were probably no consolation.

He wanted to talk to Rose again, just to hear her voice and know that she was out there. He wasn't sure how he could manage it; it was almost certain that he'd blown or destroyed something with the power surge that had knocked them there. He'd put Violet to bed, then begin working on it again. She deserved some small piece of happiness for this whole trip. Especially since they were leaving without saying goodbye to her friend.

Anil had work to do, though. And they needed to get on. Violet needed properly looked after in the TARDIS, and they really should be on their way. The reasoning was sound, but he still felt guilty that Violet wouldn't be able to have her goodbyes. He felt guilty for a lot of things; the way this had turned out (even if, ultimately, it had been for the best) and the painful lessons she'd carry with her. Innocence was a luxury for his kind and perhaps had never been meant for her.

Violet said that this was supposed to happen in a thousand years, with a larger, more docile population. They had been entirely unprepared for an invasion; entirely unaccepting that anything bad could happen, so long as they were nice and fair in all of their dealings. Perhaps…in some ways…innocence wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. It still didn't make him wish it for the colony, or for the girl any less.

THE END.


End file.
